


Kicking ass and chewing bubblegum

by Ninjaninaiii



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Pacrim Secret Santa, after the apocalypse, but otherwise fun times, mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninjaninaiii/pseuds/Ninjaninaiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Coffee shop AU in which Hermann's more at home in the rural  English Countryside than at the PPDC, and Newt get annoyed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kicking ass and chewing bubblegum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stormofjade](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=stormofjade).



> Secret Santa present for tumblr user stormofjade!! I hope you like, and I wish you a very merry festive period!

“HERMANN??!?”

Hermann knew that voice. It was a voice he had tried to ignore more than half of his life. It was a voice that couldn’t decide what it had wanted to be when it grew up: gravel or a pre-pubescent teenager, so was a horrendous mix of the two.

He didn’t look away from the customer he was serving, smiling at her and backing into the kitchen to make her sandwich.

He took a long time to make her sandwich. It had to be a perfect sandwich. He concentrated very hard on the sandwich. It was a magnificent sandwich. While he was in the kitchen, he also cleaned some dishes. The customer could wait for her sandwich. She didn’t really need it asap, he had offered to bring it to her table when it was done. Plus, someone else was serving the counter right now and they didn’t need him just yet.

Holding the plate in front of him like a shield, (an incredibly well presented shield, complete with green salad and a handful of crisps,) he poked his head around the door. The coast seemed clear. Wherever the voice had come from before, he wasn’t here now, hopefully deceived into thinking that he was definitely not Hermann. Nope. It was just a mistake. No Hermann here.

“Hermann oh my god I knew it was you!!!”

Hermann sighed, more at himself that anything else. Of course the ridiculous man would hide behind the door, in ambush. Holding the plate as calmly as he could with shaking hands, he budged past the inconvenience and offered the customer a polite smile as he set the plate down in front of her.

“Egg mayonnaise on brown bread.”

“Beautiful as ever, Hermi!”

“Thank you, Gladys. I trust your grandchildren are well?”

“Oh yes! Did I tell you Annie got her results back the other day? Top of her class!”

“I always knew she would do well. She must have inherited her intelligence from her grandmother. Give her my congratulations.”

“Oh Hermi, always a charmer. If only I was 50 years younger, hmm?” She laughed, elbowing him in the stomach. “Anyway, best not keep you, your friend looks rather like he wants your attention!” She winked at Hermann, throwing a keen glance over at the man bouncing on his toes a couple of steps behind them.

Hermann tried not to wince, biting his lip and giving Gladys another smile before turning back to the kitchen.

“Did you just call that old lady GLaDOS?”

“Gladys. With a ‘y’.”

“Oh. Shame. She seems cute. Is she your girlfriend?”

Hermann gave Newt an appalled look. “She’s 83, Geizser.”

Newt shrugged, waving at a still-smiling Gladys. “Some people are into that kinda thing.”

“I assure you, I am not.”

“Whatever floats your boat man, she’s pretty hot for her age.”

“Must you be quite so disgusting?” Hermann made like he was refilling the napkin container, knowing full well he’d filled them about forty five minutes ago. Couldn’t have too many napkins.

“Hey don’t insult my future girlfriend like that! God Hermann, for someone who works at a place whose clientele's average age is prehistoric, you’d think you could be a bit kinder.”

“You rather lower that average I should think.”

“Are you trying to tell me I’m an outlier? Because that is the most mathsy insult ever.”

Hermann rolled his eyes. The fact that he had included the man in the average rather indicated that he didn’t class him as an outlier, but pointing this out seemed unnecessarily kind, so he didn’t. “Were you going to order something or will you let me continue with my job?”

“OH uh nah sorry I only came to buy these-” Newt held up a pair of miniature potted cacti, grinning at them with the glee of a three-year-old. “-Ain’t they cute??- when I saw you so I thought i’d come say hi!”

“I would have rather you didn’t,” Hermann said, neatening a rack of salt and pepper shakers. Another totally necessary job.

“Aww c’mon Hermi,” Newt said with a deepening grin. “You’re totally happy you’ve got a flowershop friend.”

“A what?” Hermann huffed. “And don’t call me that. It’s incredibly mortifying.”

“Flowershop friends! Flowershop,” Newt made a sweeping motion to indicate their location. “Friends.” A similar motion was made, but between the two of them.

“A, this is a garden centre, B, this location is in fact the tea house inside the garden centre, and C-”

“If you say ‘C we’re not friends’ I’ll pout, Hermi.”

“And C,” Hermann emphasised, “I don’t see how you buying cacti makes us flowershop anything, other than two people who happen to be in the same area at the same time.”

“And that was the longest winded way of saying ‘C we’re not friends’,” Newt pouted.

“Newton,” Hermann sighed before he could stop himself. “I am incredibly busy. If you want something, I shall get it for you. If not,” he made a gesture at the exit. “The door is that way.”

“‘Incredibly busy’?! Hermann you’ve got to be shitting me.” Newt grabbed Hermann’s arm. How he could manage to switch from childlike bubblyness to this snarl, Hermann never did know.“You work in a fucking tea shop in the English countryside. You’re not fucking busy.”

Hermann’s hands balled up, but his momentary fury dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. “I’m tired, Newton. I work in the English countryside for a reason.”

“And are you gonna tell me that reason?!”

“I-” Whatever he was going to say was cut off by a quick glance at the counter he was supposed to be at, where his manager was glaring at him in all of her bespectacled-middle-aged-lady-badassery. “I have to go.”

“Hermann! Jesus Hermann it’s taken me like a year and a half to find you, I can’t just-” When Hermann didn’t so much as turn back to look at him, Newt made a series of frustrated noises, though remembering to censor himself around the elderly ladies.

“You’re not allowed to use work time to talk to your ‘pals’, Hermann.”

“Yes… yes I’m sorry Barbara. I- yes. I apologise.”

“As long as you shan’t do it again,” his boss hmmed, before pointing at a series of lunch orders that had just come in. “If you would? The machine’s on the fritz again, and you’re the only one of us at least half-decent with the thing.”

Hermann gave her a pained smile and went to fix the more-than-decades-old panini griller. For the fourth time. That day. He stayed in the kitchen the rest of his shift.

“Right Hermann, that was last orders. Jin’s cleaned the tables so you’re free to go when you’re done with the dishes.”

Hermann nodded, putting the last plate on a shelf with its brethren. “Thank you. I’ll see you on Wednesday?”

“Yes.” Barbara made to leave, but paused in the doorway. “Hermann?”

“Mmm?”

“...Your, er, friend. From earlier.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again-”

“No, it’s- he’s still here, if you wanted to speak to him. What am I saying, of course you do. He’s been waiting the whole day to speak with you, it would be stupid to think you didn’t.” Barbara sighed. “What I’m trying to say is, don’t you dare leave by the back exit, or the poor fellow’ll probably sleep here, he’s that determined.” She gave him a stern look before taking the back exit herself and resolutely locking the door from the outside as she did.

“Oh,” he said softly, to himself. He gulped. It was finally here.

When he poked his head out of the kitchen doorway again, Newt had his back towards him, head on the table. He could very easily sneak past, if he was just quiet, quiet-

“Your limp’s better.”

Ah.

“...yes. I’ve been taking care of it properly recently.”

“Good. You’d better, after the whole trouble with the-”

“I thought we agreed we’d never bring that up again.”

Newt then proceeded to make a heart-breaking sound, half relieved sob, half pitiful desperation. “Hermann you little shit, a phonecall or something, fucking hell it’s been two years, dude, I-”

“Oh it’s been 2 years now? I distinctly remember you saying one and a half not four hours ago-”

“Shut your pedantic mouth, you fucking idiot.” Neither had moved, not wanting to break the image, not wanting to shatter the illusion if it was one. “Raleigh and Tendo were fucking sure you’d offed yourself like 2 months in, man, and Herc was no better- and Mako, Mako almost made a fucking shrine for you.”

“...Pilots always were notorious for jumping to rash conclusions…”

“I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not. Dead that is. I remain sorry. I think I probably shall my entire life.”

“How absolutely touching, Hermi.”

Hermann sighed, but he wasn’t getting any clue as to how he should respond from the back of Newt’s head, so he forced himself forward, pulling out the chair opposite Newt’s, and sitting himself down. The table was an absolute mess; apparently Newt had reenacted the final battle with his two new cacti, a sea of salt and various splodges of condiments; ketchup being an apparently appropriate substitute for kaiju blue.

“Impressive.”

“Jin didn’t think so. He kinda gave up. Told me to tell you that it’s your responsibility to clean it up.”

“...What else did Jin tell you.”

“Not much. They said they haven’t know you for too long. That you’re, quote ‘a difficult fucker to get info out of’ unquote.”

“I try my hardest. You didn’t tell them-”

“That you were one of the dudes that stopped the apocalypse? No, Hermann, no I didn’t. Thank you for asking.”

“I’ve worked hard,” Hermann bristled, “to not be discovered in this godforsaken town. People are incredibly unwilling to hire overly qualified doctors of Mathematics, I have discovered, who should really, in their opinion, be working with the remnants of the PPDC.”

“And you’re not of the similar opinion because?”

“Because unlike some, I’m-”

“What, scared!?”

“...Terrified. I’m terrified, Newton.”

“Of what?”

“...this isn’t a counselling session. I am under no obligation to tell you-”

“We shared a brain with a kaiju, Hermann. You could literally tell me anything and I wouldn’t be surprised!”

“There’s a difference between the forceful sharing of memories and telling someone your innermost fears.”

Hermann noted out of the corner of his eye that Newt had made a disturbingly aggravated facial gesture, which made him raise his eyes. This was a bad idea. Newt was glaring, and not in a ‘wow you’re annoying’ way but in a full on, unrelentingly glaring way at him with disdain. Then he stuck out his tongue.

“Newton, please tell me your tongue is bright blue for synthetic reasons. Please tell me you have not discovered how to biologically enhance your tongue to Kaiji-esque shades.”

“Yeah, you know what, since you left, I’ve devoted myself to making myself as physically repulsive for you as possible.” He stuck his tongue out even further, wriggling it about in a serpentine manner before chucking a half dozen lollypop wrappers at Hermann’s face. They were the ten pence ultra-sour blue raspberry lollypops with the bubblegum centres and the dyed sugar that turned your whole mouth a ghastly shade of azure.

Hermann swatted him on the head. “I cannot possibly fathom why I missed you.”

“Come back.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or Won’t.”

“Both, Newton.”

Newt sighed resignedly. “Fine. Whatever. Can you give me a lift to the hotel? Apparently the buses stopped running about an hour ago?”

Hermann nodded, hefting himself up out of the wooden chair. He first wiped the mess Newt had made from the table, then headed towards the carpark.

“Don’t you miss it?” Newt asked, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets in a last-ditch attempt at nonchalance. “The crazy maths, the stifling army orders, the- the-”

“The idiotic lab-partner whose stench I still smell at every turn?” Hermann unlocked his car and slid in, removing the handicap badge from the window and storing it away. He’d noticed that driving with the badge in the window made fellow drivers either horribly polite or horribly impatient, and he could deal with neither.

Newt buckled himself into the passenger side, opening the glove compartment, the little storage box under the radio, the door shelves, digging for interesting things. Obviously, being Hermann’s car, he found two sticks of chalk and a handkerchief. Boring.

“Your face smells, so whatever.”

“Nice use of a decades old meme there, Newton. Oh do stop pouting.”

“When you come back.”

Hermann sighed again. “Where am I taking you?”

Newt directed him to the hotel, a small B&B in the nearby town. Hermann stopped on the road outside of it, flashing his emergency lights and leaning heavily on the steering-wheel so he could watch Newt get out.

“This isn’t over,” Newt told him as he stepped onto the pavement. He pushed his glasses up his nose, bending over so he could glare at Hermann through the open door. “I’m not letting you leave me.” With that, he slammed the door and made his way up to the hotel.

Hermann seriously considered quitting his job and upping there and then, but with the Christmas season upon them, and the trade on its all-time high.... he really couldn’t bring himself to do it in good conscience.

The next morning, Hermann was exactly fifteen minutes early, as he always was. He made himself a tea, sat in the back room and read his newspaper, then the latest published journals on astrophysics, the jaeger program and the Apocalypse. He’d been steadily collecting e-mails from international scholars pleading him to release his information, his theories, to publish every thought he’d had in the last 20 odd years. Instead, he’d been bookmarking every release Newton (and the occasional other J-tech or LOCCENT member) had published.

He hadn’t left his mathematics, he didn’t think it would have been possible to. And he had written a paper about his theories, wordcount be damned (he’d had over a year to write it, and it had amassed a couple hundred pages so far.

He just didn’t feel like it. Didn’t feel up to being scrutinised, to being argued against, argued over. He’d had to suffer the effects of not publishing, of course, critics and non-scholarly alike showing their outrage over his lethargy. His disappearance. Hermann had left Newton on the firing line. He knew that. So why Newton wished him anywhere in the vicinity of himself baffled the mathematician.

He gulped the rest of his tea, then tied his apron around himself and joined Stan at the counter. He definitely fit in here; nobody questioned a man whose tired demeanor made him look like he’d just hit his mid-life crisis, whose hairstyle was a bad imitation of a style that had gone out of date decades ago. He served sub-par tea with far too extravagant sandwiches and chatted to the elderly about their children’s children.

It was a saturday, and it was packed. Every seat at every table held up a doddering old couple sharing a slice of lemon drizzle and a tea-for-two. More people queued at the counter, piling up the orders. Hermann had found that with the constant, repetitive but not exhausting exercise had helped regain some of the muscles he’d lost from sitting at a desk and furiously typing, or by running around Hong Kong chased by alien monsters in dark alleys.

Except that wasn’t him, that was Newton.

He felt faint and steadied himself on the counter for a second. Then it passed and he smiled at the old lady who was deciding whether she wanted a scone or a teacake. “No, I think i’ll go for the teacake today, thank you young sir,” the lady smiled. This was possibly the only place he was ever called ‘young’. He felt old.

“Toasted, Mrs. Green?”

“Oh yes, please, Hermann, thank you.”

“That’s quite alright, you go find yourself a seat and I’ll bring it over right away for you.” She patted him on the hand and sat in a recently-vacated seat. She’d just lost her husband to old age, and Hermann found it odd. To live to old age had not been something he’d entertained very recently, and yet here she was, sitting alone at a table for two on a saturday morning in late december. He felt a pang in his heart and wondered how long he’d stopped registering how lonely he was.

He shook the foolish thoughts out of his head and carried on making orders whilst Stan, now joined by Barbara and young Tina, ferried them out to waiting customers. When he looked back, Mrs. Green had been joined by a man sitting with his back to the counter. The man was wearing an all-black suit, but looked remarkably like Newton. But Newton would never wear a suit and tie. He also seemed to have something in his ear, which he pressed from time to time.

Hermann squinted. He’d just finished toasting the lady’s teacake, so he placed a couple of blocks of butter on the plate, along with a knife, and strode over to the unusual pair. Mrs. Green seemed to be laughing, which tore at Hermann’s heart. As he neared the table, the man in the suit finished his sentence in the gravelly-man-child voice so recognisable as Newton’s, but with an odd lilt to it.

“Your teacake, Mrs. Green,” he said, placing the plate on the table in front of her. “And who might your new companion be?” He smiled at Newton in a what-are-you-playing-at-you-foolish-man way.

“This is Agent Joe,” Mrs. Green told Hermann proudly. “He says he’s here to protect the princess of… where was it you said, dear? Germany?” Newt nodded. “Yes, that was it, the Princess of Germany, Miss Gottlieb. He’s very vigilant.”

Newton smiled at Hermann in a tight-lipped, security-man type way. “Nice to meet you, Sir,” he said in his best heavy American accent. He tipped his sunglasses down, as if assessing Hermann as a possible suspect. Then he winked.

A flush rose in Hermann’s cheeks and he bit his lip to prevent himself from hitting the man. Whatever. Newton  was playing some sort of game with him in revenge, and Hermann wouldn’t rise to the bait. “If you’ll excuse me,” he dismissed, and left.

Newt had stayed in the café the remainder of the day, taking out a laptop from his metal briefcase and typing at it in a very serious manner the whole time. Hermann kept glancing at him, curious but determined not to be the first one to crack. Barbara seemed to accept that the man in the corner was eccentric of his own accord, and that Hermann had no idea what was going on, so she accepted him sitting there, occasionally buying cups of coffee, packets of crisps and biscuits. After the second coffee, Hermann had started using decaf.

Hermann was let off at 5 and he packed his stuff away into his satchel. Barbara stood in front of the back door again, arms folded over her bosom. He gave her an imploring look, but she shook her head. He sighed. Skulked out through the kitchen and into the cafe, where Newt had packed up his laptop and was standing near the door. Newton perked up when Hermann drew nearer.

“May I ask what this costume is all about?” Hermann asked, discovering that the thing in Newton’s ear was a fake communication device à la bad spy films from the last decade.

“I’ve come to escort the Princess back home.”

“Are you trying to not-so-subtly use The Princess Diaries to convince me to rejoin the army?”

“Is it working?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“But you understood the reference, so that’s a win?” Newt broke out of character the first time that day, digging through his pockets to find another lollypop, unwrapping it and popping it in his mouth. He scrunched up the wrapper and stuffed it in Hermann’s top pocket.

Hermann snorted a laugh, taking out the wrapper and dropping it into a bin. “I was afraid you had become a charmingly attractive suited man in my absence, but I shouldn’t have feared.” He appraised Newton, whose tie wasn’t skinny,  suit wasn’t stained, and whose trousers weren’t frayed or rolled at the hem.

“See? I told you I clean up well. And I haven’t got a drop of anything on any of my clothes the whole day. And I sat there the whole time, so you can’t even claim that I changed my shirt or something.” Newt pushed the sunglasses up his forehead so that they rested on his hair, squinting at Hermann.

“I take it those are not prescription glasses?”

“Uh. No. Not really. Do you realise how expensive prescription sunglasses are? I may have saved the world, but I am not rolling in money.” Newt had started to relax, unbuttoning his tight-fitting jacket so that he could use his arms to their full gesturing-capacity.

Hermann’s nose twitched. “Are you wearing… cologne?”

“What? Maybe? Do you like it? Does it smell okay?”

“Yes but…” Hermann had gotten used to the smell of the liberal appliance of cheap deodorant mixed with the tangs of formalin and rotting guts. He did not blame Newton for not having smelled like flowers throughout the Apocalypse, (no-one in the Shatterdome had, having to use the mandatory blocks of ineffective white soap and non-descript shampoos,) but even on a good day, cologne was a little… odd. “Why?”

Newt sniffed himself, looking troubled. “Ugh, maybe I should have gone for the other one, the lady in the shop said that this one was better but…” Hermann frowned, watching Newt again. He’d shaved, and not in the ‘I occasionally find a razor and scratch at myself’ way Newton had taken to, but in the ‘I used shaving cream and possibly soothing oil afterwards’ way that neat people did. Even the suit looked tailored to his body.

“No, I quite like it. Makes a pleasant change from fish.”

Newt looked relieved, then grinned. “Cool. Good. Awesome. Okay, cool. Okay. We need to get you home and changed. Do you still have that suit you wore to the Shatterdome formal a couple years back?”

Hermann squinted warily. “Why?”

“Because I’m treating my partner to a nice dinner at a posh British place.”

Hermann’s suspicion only grew. “Partner? You mean me?”

Newt didn’t meet his eye, inspecting his sunglasses and rubbing them as if he could see smudges. “Yeah, well, you’re technically not my colleague anymore. And you’re in deep cover, right? So not drift-partner. So.”

Hermann hmmed. He found the term quite acceptable. It sounded trustingly formal and yet long-lasting, as their relationship had been. “I do believe I still have the suit in the back of the wardrobe somewhere, yes.” This was a lie. He knew exactly where it was. It was on the pile marked ‘jumble’ and was probably creased beyond repair. “Do you need to return to your hotel room?” It was a rhetorical question, what with Newt not actually being able to see much without his glasses, so Hermann returned him to his hotel, driving back to his own place with the promise that he would be back to pick Newton up at seven.

Hermann spent just over an hour ironing the suit, shaving and making himself presentable. He’d not exactly been in shape at the Shatterdome (or ever, come to that,) but now the suit sagged and though wasn’t moth-eaten, had the air of being so. He adjusted his tie again, then combed his hair.

Newton had looked, well, not spectacular, as in Raleigh-and-Mako-walking-down-the-red-carpet, as they were wont to do nowadays, but incredibly decent. More than decent.

Hermann looked like a man in a suit. His fringe hung tiredly, his suit hung tiredly, his slouch made him look like he was permanently tired.

He straightened his posture and rolled his shoulders. There, that was slightly better… then he did something he had told his pestering sister he would never in a million years do, no matter how often she begged. He combed his fringe back and set it with a hair product that had been in his bag for a long time (and whose original owner was potentially Newt.)

That was…. better. Fractionally, but better. He stopped looking at himself in the mirror, knowing nothing now could change. He grabbed his keys, got in the car, and picked Newton up.

“You can stop staring now.”

“You have a forehead.”

“So you’ve said, dozens of times. I assure you, I have always been in possession of a forehead.”

“But your fringe...”

“Keen perceptive skills, Newton.”

“You look good with your hair up.”

Hermann gripped the wheel tighter. “Thank you. So do you.” Two partners, complimenting each other in a car journey to a posh restaurant. Hermann could handle this.

Neither of the two particularly liked hauty restaurants like this, Newton appreciating the amazing food and hating the atmosphere, Hermann liking the service, but hating the memories it gave him of being taken to such places as a child.

This morning he’d woken up wondering if Newton would really come back to see him, or if seeing him in the garden centre had reawoken the memories of how dull Hermann truly was. Now he was sitting in a michelin star restaurant, being ‘treated’ to a meal. It almost felt like…

Newt, who’d managed to get a blue stain on his shirt within the first two minutes of being left alone in his hotel room and was now trying to get it out with his spit and a glass of water, had seen the dawning realisation on Hermann’s face between scrubs. “Yes, it’s a date, Hermann, oh my god.”

“Well- I suppose-” Hermann was still trying to keep his posture as straight as possible, but slouched slightly now, embarrassed but… feeling quite appreciated. He felt appreciated at the café, for sure, but Newton appreciated him.

“I more than appreciate you, you chalk-stick dinosaur.” Newt gave up with the blue spot, moving on to rearranging the cutlery instead. “Don’t give me that look, I know what you’re thinking. I always know what you’re thinking. You’re predictable, just like your damned maths.”

“And yet you still ask me why I left?” Hermann bit out, then deflated. Way to go, Gottlieb. That was. Unnecessary.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Newt repeated, his rearranging slowing. “But that doesn’t mean I know why you left me.” Just like Newt’s voice, though his personality was hard and brash, through the cracks you could see his childlike vulnerability.

“I don’t want it, Newton. I do not want people to judge me for not having realised sooner, for not having saved more lives, for not having perfected the jaegers that fell so easily.”

“But-”

“I know,” Hermann cut in. “I know it wasn’t my fault, that I couldn’t possibly have thought any faster, that it was my ego keeping me from giving the job to someone else more qualified, but-”

“What if…”

Hermann sat back, closing his eyes momentarily. “Exactly. What if.”

“They’re not going to blame you for succeeding.”

“They’ll blame me for not succeeding fast enough.”

Newton stilled. He looked unsure what to say. He looked like he wanted to flip over various tables, like he wanted to hit a guy.He looked like he understood.

A man walked past their table, but they didn’t notice him. They did, however, notice when the man visibly stalled, backtracked, and gawped. “Dr. Gottlieb? Hermann Gottlieb?” The man asked, astounded. “It is, isn’t it, and you’re Dr. Geiszler.”

“Sorry dunno who you’re on about, private engagement going on right here,” Newt said, dropping his eyes and trying to close the man off from their vision. He took out a lollypop and unwrapped it slowly, as if the action would ward the man off.

The man’s shocked tone plummeted into something much more menacing. He laughed. “Fancy both of you taking a leisurely dinner. Dr. MIA and Dr. Reclusive right here, in front of my eyes.”

Newt sighed. “Sorry, signatures cost more than you’re worth, and a photo is a by-postal-order thing exclusively. So if you wouldn’t mind just…” Newton shooed at him, trying to ignore Hermann’s grimace.

“Oh you have some nerve showing your face after you’ve halted the entire scientific community, huh.” Newton raised his eyes, his eyebrows following. He bristled as the man directed his spiel at Hermann, teeth crunching down on the hard outer layer of the lolly..

“You think you’re so amazing, hoarding all those numbers and readings to yourself when any one of us could have done what you did, and more!” The man was pointing to them now, and addressed the restaurant at large. “People of London, I present to you the cowards, the egotistical crackpots, Dr.s Gottlieb and Geiszler. Now now, don’t be shy, why not come and ask them where they’ve been the last two years. Sate your curiosity! Quiz them why they get to keep the knowledge of the universe to themselves! Ask them why it is they that deserve answers that we poor ‘unintelligent’ folk do not?”

The man looked like he was going to say more, but he didn’t.

Or, rather, couldn’t.

Because Newt punched him, very hard, very accurately, in the face. He’d been in barfights. He’d lost in barfights. He’d had Mako tell him how to win in barfights. He’d had Mako teach him how to punch a dude into the next century.

There was a gasped silence as the restaurant, many of whom had turned at the man’s calling to them, hushed. Then someone laughed, and applauded. Another person whooped. Soon the whole room, (bar a couple of the more uptight, tutting older men,) were clapping.

Newton stood panting over the man, who had either passed out, or was too embarrassed to stand up, and whose nose was bleeding profusely. He grinned at Hermann, then blew a bubble. It was a perfect bubble, and popped satisfyingly. Hermann shook his head, stunned, feeling a lot like princess who’d been saved by  a knight in shining armour and not caring as much as he  potentially should have.

A waiter crept towards them. “Er, Sir, I’m sorry but… we’d like to escort you off the premises… We have a strict, no-violence policy within the restaurant…”

A couple of people booed, but Hermann stood up and dusted himself off.

He felt renewed.

He had Newt.

Newt who would punch self-entitled assholes in the face for dissing a nerdy maths-maniac.

Newt who kicked ass and chewed bubblegum.

Who needed to worry when you had Newt?

Hermann held the crook of his elbow out to the man, who was slowly coming back to reality from his adrenalin high. Newt looked at the arm, and pointed to himself. Then he shoved his arm through it, lest the offer be renounced.

They walked out of the fancy restaurant and went to Hermann’s house, where they drunk filtered tap water and argued about everything. They hadn’t argued for a good time. They had a lot to catch up on.

Hermann found that he rather enjoyed the taste of the Kaiju-blue-coloured chemical that stained Newton’s tongue.

 

 


End file.
